


Adjust

by Coshledak



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Roy Mustang, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 22:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14067087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coshledak/pseuds/Coshledak
Summary: He opens his eyes again and squints a little as he does it, on reflex. There’s no light to adjust to, though, so he stops.Adjust. That word keeps popping up.(Blind!Roy x Riza fluff)





	Adjust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raisingmybanner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisingmybanner/gifts).



> Sent a picture of Lan Fan and Ling to my buddy and somehow it turned into discussing how much we 1) love blind!Roy and 2) love RizaxRoy. I'd wanted to write some Blind!RoyxRiza for a while and had this idea after finishing the series (which we watched in AUGUST). But I just got around to writing it all out yesterday.
> 
> Enjoy!

There’s a faint breeze coming through the open window next to his bed and it draws his attention towards it. Despite himself, he tries to picture it. Despite himself, he closes his eyes as if that will offer an additional method of focus. This ignores, of course, the fact that he doesn’t need to close his eyes anymore--at least, not to focus. It doesn’t make a difference. But he’s only been without his sight for a short while, hasn’t even left the hospital yet, so he thinks he gets a pass on that. He’s adjusting.

He imagines that he’s going to be adjusting for a while.

But he tries to picture the window anyway. Now that he’s started, it seems stupid to stop. He tries to think about the curtains rustling in the wind. Judging by the breeze he feels on his face…how thick were hospital curtains again? Usually enough so to block out some light, aren’t they? It would make sense, so patients can rest into the morning without being disturbed by the light. But they wouldn’t be black, too dreary. 

Being blind see is a lot like this now. He’s in the military, he spent more time in hospitals than he cares to remember. How many times did he come visit Havok after he was paralyzed? But he never noticed the damn _curtains._ He thinks to himself that maybe he should regret not noticing those little details, but that’s impractical. It’s the same as saying he should have anticipated that he’d lose his sight in the first place. Frankly, he’s never been quite that pessimistic.

His hair tickles at his forehead with the breeze. _Right. Window._

So, going off the assumption that they’re moderately thick and the breeze isn’t that strong, they’re probably only rustling a little. They likely aren’t even flicking up at the ends or being pushed into the room at all. Not the most dynamic mental picture, but it’s a practical one.

He opens his eyes again and squints a little as he does it, on reflex. There’s no light to adjust to, though, so he stops.

_Adjust._ That word keeps popping up.

“Colonel? Is everything alright?” _Riza._

There’s a small validation in this struggle. It’s one that he doesn’t really think about until he hears one of his subordinates—well, former subordinates—talk. He can recognize them all by voice. He’s always prided himself as caring a great deal about his subordinates. He’s prided himself on being their friend as well as their leader. But one of the tricky things about priding yourself on something like that, something so fickle and off the backs of relationships, is that some doubt in the back of your mind makes you wonder: Do you really care? Or do you do it for pride? To say that you do? To boast?

He doesn’t hear that doubting little voice anymore. Not since one afternoon when Fuery pointed out that he was responding to people with their names, recognizing them by voice, and that was impressive considering the circumstances. Roy’s natural reaction hadn’t been pride then. It had been a sense of humility…and intense relief. 

“Fine, Lieutenant,” he answers, turning to face her. “I was just enjoying the breeze. Though I could have sworn I told you not to call me ‘colonel’ anymore. I’m retired from the military.”

“Old habits,” she says, and her voice is gentle around the edges. Humble and maybe a little sad. It’s not the sort she wants addressed, though, so he doesn’t.

He can trace her footsteps as she walks into the room, so he tries to move his head along with her, but he doesn’t know how to move his eyes. When she gets adjacent to his bed her movement stops being so dramatic and all he can do is keep his head angled. “It feels nice outside. Is it?”

“Yes. A little cloudy, though.”

“Another storm?” She takes a seat next to him and that’s the last movement that’s big enough for him to trace. He lowers his head a little as she sits, tries to calculate about where she would be. He can’t. He knows where she is when she’s standing but when she’s sitting, he can’t--

“Unlikely.” He tries to estimate where her face is based on the sound of her voice. He can’t. _Dammit._ “I imagine Black Hayate and I will still be able to go for our usual walk this evening.”

She keeps talking. It lets him figure out how to adjust his head, which he does. Once he’s estimated it about right, he closes the book he was holding in his lap.

“What a relief,” he jokes. Riza gives him a soft hum of agreement.

“How are your Braille studies going?”

He doesn’t even think about it until after he’s halfway turned his head. All that effort to try to angle his head just right—gone. He stops when his head cocked, facing nowhere, before he quickly—but reluctantly—turns to look at the book in his lap. That’s easier to estimate because he can feel where his hands are, but he suspects he might be turning his head too far down. He moves his thumb over the bumps on the cover slowly. B-R-A-I-L-L-E. There are more bumps, but he doesn’t try to discern them.

He chuckles. “Like learning to read all over again, but less exciting than I remember it to be as a child. It might have something to do with the fact I’m not getting candy to reward my efforts.”

“You were given candy to learn how to read?” Riza sounds surprised. He can remember what she looks like when she’s surprised because of how rarely it happened. It’s one of the things he imprinted on his mind.

“Madame Christmas thought I was much cuter as a child. In fact, she might very well resent me for growing up in the first place. It certainly would explain a lot.”

He twists to look for pillows behind him then remembers to reach. To feel. To _adjust._ They’re there, though, and he does his best to arrange them so that he can lean back against them and stretch his legs out. His back pops a little, but it feels nice to stretch. He’d lost track of how long he’d been hunched over that way.

“How are things at the office?” He turns to her, but a voice tells him that he’s off. A quieter voice tells him that he’ll always be off. Riza can be his eyes in many ways, she always has been, but this is beyond her reach. “The Ishvalan policy is progressing?”

“We’re moving in leaps.” Her voice is back to military formality again, but he doesn’t find it cold. It’s familiar. 

She spends some time then telling him about the progress they’ve made, the discussions they’ve had. They’re working closely with many Ishvalans on it, helping to best create a strong link between the nations that’s founded on mutual effort, cooperation, and understanding. He only wishes he could see it, could see the Ishvalan’s freely coming and going from the capitol grounds, sitting in meetings. Being treated as the equals they always were.

He asks questions and makes suggestions, gives notes. Though he’s technically a civilian now, he knows they’ll be considered with the highest honors. He promised, after all, that he would revise this policy. He will make something that actually _works_ for both peoples.

After about two hours, Riza stands up. He lifts his head to follow her. “I’ll be heading back now. Do you need anything?”

“Have you finished cleaning out my desk?” There’s a long pause and he listens. She hasn’t moved, so he knows she’s not gone. He can hear her breathing steadily. Usually she’s silent. She might be getting sick. 

“Almost.”

He smiles, but the tone of her voice sends a pain through his chest. “You’ve said that every time I ask.”

“Every time you ask it’s _almost_ done.” Her voice isn’t clipped. It’s strong and unwavering yet, somehow, he can discern a plea in it.

“Alright, alright.” It’s that faint, unexplained plea that always makes him relent. It’s working again now, too. He’s never stern with her about it, though he tells himself that he really should be, because he’s never had to be _stern_ with Riza Hawkeye, of all people.

He moves to the edge of the bed, feeling it before he slips his legs over. He hears Riza move, so he assumes that he was probably a little close to her when he did it, but she also happened to be at about the spot he left his slippers. He feels for them with his feet before sliding them on.

“Would you get that sweater for me? The one hanging on a hook by the door,” he says, and points in the general direction he knows the door to be, mindful not to extend his arm in case he accidentally bumps into her with it.

After pulling the sweater on he stands up, making sure to carry his book with him.

“Co—Mustang?” Riza catches herself, though her tone tells him that she wishes she hadn’t. “What are you doing?”

She’s good about making sure that her question comes off as curious rather than doubtful, but he can still pick up on the fact that she’s questioning his choices. 

“Going to the cafeteria, Hawkeye,” he replies, amused. “Relax. I’m not leaving supervision.”

“I’ll go with you—”

“You need to go back to work,” he points out. “You just said as much.”

“Did you _wait_ for me to have to go before you decided to take this excursion?” Now she sounds accusatory.

“It would have been rude to just get up and—ow!” He bumps into the other bed in the room as he tries to navigate around it. Of course, it doesn’t really hurt, because he was walking slowly enough that he didn’t hit with any hard impact. But it surprised him, coming up in the middle of the conversation.

There’s a pause before Hawkeye continues. “It would not have been rude. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future,” he says, in all honesty. “But don’t let that little flub fool you. I only bumped into the bed because I was distracted talking to you. At this rate, it would be safer for me to go on my own.”

It’s a joke, but he think she can feel her frowning at the back of his neck as his hand makes contact with the door. He slides it open. “See? I’ve got this under control.”

“Mustang,” she sighs, and her exhale brings the weight of the world down upon this room. He swallows, a pressure settling on his neck that makes it hard to raise his head let alone to turn and look at her. To give the illusion of looking at her. Her voice is quiet, landing somewhere between stern and beseeching. It’s a mix that only Hawkeye, who rests so close to his heart, can manage. “You don’t have to do this on your own. You know that, don’t you? I’m—”

“You’re here just as much as you always have been, Lieutenant,” he answers, using his best militant voice. He softens it a moment later, finding the strength to turn his head. “I know it. Don’t worry.”

“It—”

“You’ve trusted me up to this point, Hawkeye,” he interjects, his voice gently teasing. “It would be a shame to think that a little thing like blindness would get in the way of that.”

Something crackles in the air, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. Instead, he hears her boots across the floor, heading in his direction. “You’re right.”

He can’t help but think her voice sounds terse, but he pushes it aside as he heads through the door to make way for her, standing aside. He can hear the rustle of her uniform as she suddenly salutes him. “Mustang.”

“Lieutenant.” 

_Definitely terse._ He follows her with his head as she walks around him, but hears her going down the hall. A part of him wonders if she’ll tell the nurses to keep an eye on him while another part of him knows that she won’t.

The cafeteria is in the opposite direction from where Riza went, so he keeps a hand to the wall as he makes his way there. He had been pushed in a wheelchair down these hallways several times to get there, before the nurses stopped making him use one. He made a point of memorizing how to get there after the first few times, deciding that he didn’t want to be restrained to his bed without assistance. He needs to learn to live without assistance, even Riza’s.

The tricky part is the intersecting hallway. There’s a spot where the hallway goes straight and another hallway extends to the left. After a few steps down the hallway on the right side, he listens for any hospital traffic before moving to the left side. That makes it easier to figure out where the turn is, at least. He follows that hallway to the end, where it branches into another perpendicular hall, and turns left.

As he gets closer to the cafeteria, he hears the somewhat busy sounds of people eating and talking. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound too crowded. He lingers outside for a moment, across the hall, trying to bring to mind what the layout of the cafeteria is.

“Colonel Mustang?” Title and name and he doesn’t recognize the voice. It’s coming across the hall, from the doorway. Female. “Are you coming to eat?”

“Ah, yes,” he says. “I was just trying to remember the layout of the cafeteria before I went in.”

“Oh!” He can hear her understanding smile, but the only image that comes to mind is a face softened with pity. “Why don’t you let me get this patient back to her room and then I’ll come help you with that.”

“I think I—”

But she’s already hurrying down the hallway. He can hear the faint squeak and soft roll of wheels as she goes. He considers escaping into the cafeteria alone and navigating it but decides against it when he hears a few more people come out. He’s thankful that none of them address him, but he tries to stand with purpose anyway.

“Back!” He can hear her shoes on the floor as she comes jogging up. Without ceremony she puts her arm through his. “Ready?”

Leading him inside, he’s surprised to find that she doesn’t just walk him through getting his food. She talks as she navigates him around the perimeter of the cafeteria to where the food is. She explains that they don’t keep tables and such along any of the walls for this reason and for the maneuverability of wheel chairs. She goes slowly, so he can estimate how they’re moving around the room from the door. He counts his steps between each turn.

She introduces him to the cooking aides in the food area and explains to them what to do when they see him (ask him what he’d like to eat, then walk around the side and hand him the tray or item). Never once does she mention he’s blind, though he supposes that’s redundant just by looking at him. Lastly she helps him find a table and set the tray down, but lets him navigate sitting. 

“If you get up and keep moving along the wall to your right here, you’ll be able to circle past the tray deposit and all the way to the door, Colonel Mustang.”

“Thank you, Ella,” he says, nodding.

She gives a satisfied sound before he hears her walking off, leaving him to his food. It’s nothing particularly involved, just a sandwich, but he’s hungry enough that it feels more significant than it is. While he reads he makes sure to be careful in moving his hand, not too high or too low or too fast that he knocks things off of his plate. 

When he finishes, he picks up his tray and carefully migrates to the right until his hand finds the wall. The tray return is detonated easily by the feeling of metal under his palm and the sounds of plates and silverware clattering. He has to feel for the surface of where to set the tray with his free hand, but he manages. Then he follows the flat surface to the wall at the other end and follows it around.

He gets back to the hallway and crosses it to the opposing wall, following it back to the turn. He’s back into his hallway, part of the way down, when he hears, “Colonel Mustang!”

“Yes?” He straightens up and turns around, taking his hand off the wall but not moving away from it. Of course, he cannot see who’s running towards him but, as he’s just spoken to Ella a short while ago, he recognizes her voice.

“You forgot this,” she says, pressing his book into his hand. He recognizes it immediately by its weight and the feel of its cover.

“Oh, thank you.”

“No problem,” she says, a little breathless. “I better get back!”

With that she’s gone again, her light footsteps retreating at a jog down the hallway. He lingers, closing his eyes again. He didn’t even think about it when he opened them in response to the sounds of her approach.

Continuing on down the hallway, it takes him a few steps, tangled in his own thoughts, to remember that he didn’t switch sides. That makes his throat tighten a little, and he straightens up, fighting down the instinctive urge to turn his head back and forth but he can’t catch himself in time to keep his eyes closed, so he closes them again. Bringing himself back under control, he switches sides of the hallway and keeps walking. But now he pays more attention to the signs on the outsides of the door.

All of them have Braille punctured into them, but the pages in his book have been more spaced out while he learns the alphabet and simple words. For a moment he forgets which room he’s even in as his fingers go over the cells, trying to remember numbers. He hadn’t learned much with the numbers if only because he didn’t think that he would need them as much as the letters. Another moment of regret for not thinking ahead when, logically, he knows that it was impossible to foresee this.

_1…6…2…?_ He tries again, going slower this time, but the number he’s already arrived at won’t leave his mind. Is it really 162?

The sound of a door sliding open across the hall startles him, but he tries not to show it. Whoever was in there doesn’t seem like the nosey type because they just turn and head down the hallway. He thinks he hears them yawn. He’s about to go back to trying to read the number but then the door next to it slides open and someone yelps in surprise.

“My apologies,” Roy says, but the door closes again sharply. Well, it’s not his room, then.

He considers whether to go backwards or forwards before deciding to continue on backwards. The way between his room and the end of the hallway is shorter than it would be to go all the way in the direction he’s going. In the worst case, he supposes he can hit the end and then go back up further than where he started it. Of course, that means keeping track of how many doors he goes by so he doesn’t have to read them again.

And the next door he comes to, he finds, has far more than numbers on its placard. He’s about to move on when he remembers that his room was near a utilities closet. A nurse had soothed his embarrassment when he spilled something on the floor by telling him the utilities closet was nearby. Of course, he couldn’t see if she’d gone left or right when she exited the room to go to it…he’s also not sure this _is_ a utilities closet.

He tries to read, moving his fingers slowly over the letters on the placard, but they’re closer together, too, compared to his book. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, slow, trying to focus on discerning where the different letters are, at the very least, but his head is buzzing with a dangerous cocktail. Embarrassment, frustration, and something that might be close to panic…

“Your finger is over two different letters, that’s why you can’t figure it out.”

He freezes at the sound of Riza’s voice. At first his ears ring with panic and his heartbeat and nothing else, the sound of someone so close to him. He just barely clings to the recognition of her voice, like taking a last gasp before being submerged in deep water. It takes him a moment to come out of it, and part of that is because he feels her hand on his back, against his shoulder blade. Her fingers brush against his hand as she moves his fingertips to rest over one set of cells.

“What is it?” She asks.

He tips his head down and he’d drop his hand away but she’s still holding it where it is. “U…” She moves his finger to the next letter, and the first and second bump against the sides of his fingers but he can feel a semi-clear division between them now. “T.” She moves his finger again, to the next letter. “I.”

Together they continue, spelling out the word: U-T-I-L-I-T-I-E-S. He did find the closet after all. What a relief.

Without another sound, after he finishes reading the letters aloud, Riza leads him back to his room. He sits on the edge of his bed, setting his book aside as he stares at his lap.

“Were you following me this whole time?”

“No,” she answers, and the answer is swift but not false. “After you left I came back to the room. Then, I heard you apologizing down the hallway so I stuck my head out to watch you. I would’ve left you alone, but it seemed like you were getting caught up.”

“I see.” He frowns at his lap. It was that obvious? He supposes if he looked that way when that other patient opened their door then it makes sense why they slammed it shut despite his apology. He’s been told that he makes scary faces when he’s focusing on something. Of course, the only one to use the words ‘scary face’ was Elicia. 

The sound of Riza’s movement is quiet enough that he doesn’t notice she’s moving a tall until he feels her hands resting on his in his lap. Something brushes against his knees, but it’s not until she talks that he pieces together that she’s kneeling in front of him. “You don’t have to distance yourself from everyone, Roy.”

His first name. Vastly inappropriate between commanding officer and his subordinate but…he’s not her commanding officer anymore. She’s not his subordinate anymore. He’s known that all this time but somehow it didn’t come to the forefront of his mind until now. In this moment is when he realizes what distance really means.

“I—“ She squeezes his hands and he stops talking, but presses his fingertips between his knuckles.

“I didn’t realize it until you made that comparison about reading Braille to learning to read,” she explains. “But I understand now, and I think you’re being stupid.”

“ _What?_ ” He opens his eyes and levels his head to her height.

He must sound and look as shocked as he feels because she laughs. She laughs and he knows, even if someone walked by and had never met Riza in their life, they could tell by the sound alone how rare it is. It’s not uproarious. It’s not boisterous. It’s tame and soft but full of amusement all the same. “You haven’t even realized it, have you? That you’re being too hard on yourself.”

He opens his mouth but closes it again. His fingers tighten on his hands, digging harder between his knuckles, but she moves her hands over his. instead of resting on top of them, he can feel her gently pressing her fingers between the heels of his palms. He doesn’t resist, letting her fingertips slide between them until they press against his palms. He relaxes and separates his hands, now with her fingers resting gently in each.

“You retired because you lost your sight, but simultaneously you think that you need to have it all together around us like a commanding officer. You’re keeping your distance while you learn how to navigate this, but when I said you don’t have to do it alone I meant it _as you are_ ,” she explains. “With all due respect, Sir, you should have realized that.”

He closes his eyes and slowly lowers his head, considering it before he lets out a chuckle. “Old habits?”

“They’re tough to shake,” she responds, by way of agreement.

He closes his fingers around hers and squeezes them before moving them up. He holds them against his lips, not quite kissing but just feeling the calluses and battle worn skin. He can feel it in the subtle movements of her hands when she stands up, and as she pulls her hands away he lets her.

He tips his head up towards where he estimates her to be and smiles, “Thank you, Lieu—Hawkeye.”

“You’re welcome, Mustang.”


End file.
